The Gentle Art of Faking: A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present dayNobili, Riccardo
History
The Gentle Art of Faking: A history of the methods of producing imitations & spurious works of art from the earliest times up to the present day
Nobili, Riccardo
Art -- Forgeries; Collectors and collecting; Forgery of antiquities
One of his agents sent him a marble statue with an Etruscan
inscription; from Siena, Lorenzo receives a bust that sends him into
raptures, and he immediately wishes to buy it. To give an idea of his
appreciation and willingness to pay whatever it might be worth, we
quote part of his letter dated May 15th, 1490, addressed to Andrea
da Foiano then at Siena. “Ser Andrea, I received your letter last
night, and with it the head which you sent me and which, on account
of its being fine and having much of the antique beauty, I would most
willingly buy from him who owns it, if he will part with it for what it
is worth.”
Though there is no document to support the fact, this bust is possibly
the one that P. della Valle says was sent from Siena to Lorenzo,
representing a head of Jupiter, of such a character that beheld from
one side it had a benign expression, and from the other a terrifying
one. Naples also contributed its share to the Medicean collection,
from whence arrive the portraits of Faustina and Scipio Africanus, a
fine bust of Hadrian and a sleeping Cupid. These last two statues were
conveyed to him by Giuliano da Sangallo, who under Lorenzo’s directions
had asked them of the king of Naples.
As a collector and type of antiquary not disdaining a good bargain,
and perhaps influenced by the lineage of shrewd bankers, from which
he sprang, Lorenzo made more than one good stroke of business. From
Pope Sixtus IV he managed to buy the artistic treasure of the Holy See
at such a ridiculous price as to arouse protests from the Pontifical
accountants. The deal, which was carried through by Lorenzo’s uncle,
Giovanni Tornabuoni, caused a scandal that only the Pope’s authority
managed to silence, and the Medici collection became enriched by many
fine pieces. Among them, the so-called “Tazza Farnese,” now one of
the finest pieces of the Naples Museum, to which the inventory of the
collection gives a value of 10,000 ducats, and the rare Greek work
known as the “Rape of the Palladium,” rated by the same inventory at
the sum of 1500 ducats. This celebrated cameo had formerly belonged to
Niccoli. Donatello copied it for one of his medallions of the Medici
palace. There were other dealings between the Medici and the Holy See,
but we fail to know how advantageous they may have been for either
side. In the year 1460 the Medici sold a piece of tapestry to Pope Pius
II for the not inconsiderable sum of 1200 golden ducats, and later on,
through the above-quoted agent, Giovanni Tornabuoni, in the year 1484
several yards of common tapestry were sold to the Pope by the Medicis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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